At this year’s Student Success Network (SSN) Expo, CARA’s Youth Research Council (YRC) shared findings in a breakout session titled How Social Media Is Reshaping the Postsecondary Process: A Youth-Guided Research Project. The presentation reflected months of collaboration between Youth Research Council members – former peer leaders – and the CARA research team, as they explored how digital spaces influence the ways students imagine and pursue college.

This project is one way CARA centers youth not just in programs, but original research. The Youth Research Council uses the approach of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), empowering young people to meaningfully contribute to research about their communities and the issues they’re facing. If we want to learn more about how young people are thinking about their options after graduation, then young people are the experts! YPAR has allowed the YRC to collaborate in identifying key topics, developing a research project, and then collecting and analyzing data.

The YRC began its 2024–25 project with one guiding question: how do young people today understand the value of higher education? Early focus groups revealed that much of this reflection now happens online. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have become major sources of information, where students learn about campus life, financial aid, and majors through short videos made by other young people. In focus groups and interviews, students discussed not only what kind of information they get online, but how they use social media as a tool among other sources of information.

During the Expo, CARA facilitators Ashley Barry, Ashley Arias, and Brittni Ortiz led an interactive session connecting their findings to educators’ daily practices. Participants shared how students are already bringing social media content into advising sessions – TikToks about student debt, reels about career options, or videos questioning the value of college.

We are proud of the YRC’s insights and commitment to this project, and grateful to the Student Success Network for creating space to share their work, and to the Solon E. Summerfield Foundation for supporting CARA’s youth voice research.

Stay tuned for the full report about social media in college access coming soon!